1. Statement of the Technical Field
The present invention relates to server blade networks and more particularly to a method and system for updating each blade in a server blade network without the need for an administrator to access each blade via a separate user identification number and corresponding password.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, server architecture has undergone drastic changes. The shape of servers deployed in large data centers has changed significantly toward smaller, more compact systems. There is now a great demand for highly compacted rack mountable servers that cost less money, take up less space, simplify deployment, and consume less power. Distributed server architecture based on “blades” is rapidly emerging as the architecture of choice for Internet service providers and corporate data centers.
Server blade networks stack many independent lower-end servers within a single chassis. Chassis can include as many as 14 “blades”. Each blade acts as an independent system with its own memory, processor and network connection. Due to their compact size, many server blades can be placed in a single server chassis, allowing many systems to share HVAC resources and electricity. Due to their relatively small size, server blades consume less power and generate less heat than a typical server. Designing server blades without PC-interfaces for floppy, CD-ROM, keyboard, mouse, printer, SCSI devices, graphics and PCI slots can create affordable server blade systems. Reliability can be increased since server blades typically contain only a bare minimum of electronics. Finally, server blades are easy to deploy as they plug into a pre-wired chassis, are loaded with pre-configured software images and are hot-pluggable.
Typically, due to size and space constraints, there may be a desire to boot one or more server blades remotely. Typically, each server blade within the chassis can be booted or the operating systems can be sent upgrade packages via typical FTP (File Transfer Protocol) or standard Telnet methods. For example, to update a Linux blade, an update package is transmitted to the target blade via FTP. A Telnet system is then used to remotely login to the system and issue an update command to the target blade. However, security restrictions require the network administrator to first receive and then store user identification numbers (“USERIDs”) and corresponding passwords for each blade prior to issuing the update commands via the combination of FTP and Telnet transmissions.
As a result of the above-described shortcomings, the network administrator must memorize and/or enter multiple USERIDs and corresponding passwords for each server blade and access the network numerous times, a tedious, time consuming, and costly task. In addition, a great deal of bandwidth is used because each server blade boot request results in a separate transmission of boot packets for each blade over an already burdened IP network. It is therefore desirable to have a server blade network system and method that seamlessly updates each blade in the network via an out-of-band communication path thus obviating the need for a network administrator to enter user identification information for each server blade update transmission and reducing the burden on the IP network.